More healthcare BS from the media
Wow is it ever difficult to get the TRUTH about almost any political issue :( The current healthcare debate is no exception. Conservatives have been screaming for months that Canadians, with their free healthcare system, have awful healthcare and that thousands of 'em cross the border every year seeking treatment in the US.
Apparently, from what I can tell, there is some truth to this argument. But the flip side of the argument, that US healthcare is, in every respect, superior to Canadian (or British) healthcare just doesn't hold water. There are some aspects which are indeed superior (many of the best hospitals and doctors in the world are here in the US). But there are other aspects that are about the same.
For example, I'll include the text of a recent blog here. The blog itself is partially correct, but I think wrong in some of its claims about how perfect the US system is. Equally interesting are the many comments added by visitors to this blog. The comment I find most closely representing the truth is the lengthy one by Frank.
Here it is:
12,500 Canadians come to US for health care
Bob Barr points out that 12,500 Canadians seek health care in the United States each year:
Since Barack Obama was inaugurated President just over seven months ago, some 17,500 Canadian have come to the U.S. to receive health care. Just since the President’s health care legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives in March, about 12,500 Canadians have come here for health care. During that same period, how many Americans have travelled north to obtain health care in Canada because they couldn’t get it here in the States?The decision is made in many cases due to rationing of health care procedures. You can watch a couple of these horror stories here and here.The average wait time for a Canadian to obtain treatment from a specialist after seeing a primary care physician? About 4-1/2 months. In the U.S.? Virtually none.
Want to see a primary care doctor in the U.S.? Pick up the phone and call one. In Canada, get in line behind the five percent of the population waiting to get a primary care physician (about 17 million Canadians).
And still there are those in Washington extolling the benefit of a government-controlled, single-payor heath care system . . . like they have in Canada.
posted by -bb @ 9:39 PM
COMMENTS
How many Americans have travelled north to Canada for health care? Quite a few if you believe the Canadian government. This is an old report, but I can't think of a reason why the numbers would have dropped...
"A report prepared for Ontario's Health Minister indicated that from August 1992 to February 1993, 60,000 medical claims had been made on behalf of patients who held American drivers' licenses. The total number of improper claims in Ontario was estimated at 600,000."
Now I'll admit that there's a big difference in the two situations. Americans are going to Canada to steal free health care. Canadians are coming here because we have the best health care money can buy...as long as your cash lasts.
Posted by: DonnieChaffin | August 29, 2009 08:14 PM
You should go to the UP of Michigan, nothing but hospitals for canadains.
Go on a ferry with a bunch of candains and ask them were they are going. It is either the Indian reservations to gamble or the American hospitals. 7 out of 10 are to the latter.
Posted by: Michael | August 30, 2009 01:26 PM
Michael: I'm going to have to call "bullshit". The only serious study I've ever seen on cross border care patterns by Canadians put the number of Canadians seeking care in the US at numbers so low as to be nearly statistically immeasurable. Try googling "Phantoms in the snow". They performed that study when the US insurance lobby started spreading this "Canadians flock to the US for care" myth in the 90s and nothing has changed to alter the findings since.
Oh, and like 750,000 Americans sought medical care overseas in 2007 btw.
Posted by: Grant | August 31, 2009 06:14 AM
Oh, and as for the original article's reference to "horror stories" caused by "rationing of care" in Canada... I assume this is being written by An American? Someone living in a country where tens of millions of people are priced out of the insurance market completely, tens of millions more are so inadequately insured for the same reason that they're facing financial distress or bankruptcy if they get sriously ill or injured and doctors are asking insurance corporation accountants for permission to treat their patients a million times a day? Is the author familiar with what rationing means? And would they care to speculate how many decades we would have to devote to listening to all the horror stories to be found among the ranks of the uninsured and under-insured American population before we exhausted THOSE? Or are we going to pretend that the fact that we can find a couple people with bad experiences among a population of over 30 million is fully representative of the state of medical care north of the border?
Posted by: Grant | August 31, 2009 06:23 AM
Speaking of calling bullshit. Roughly half of the uninsured choose to be uninsured, either by not purchasing insurance coverage when they could easily afford it or because they choose to participate existing programs.
Another third are immigrants, legal and illegal.
When you really break it down, there are about 10 million people that are truly uninsurable.
As far as "bad experiences," these are people that would otherwise be dead because the procedure needed is rationed. So, no, it's not an uncommon occurrence.
Posted by: Jason | August 31, 2009 06:36 AM
Michael, Where are your references for 750,000 Americans going overseas for treatment? This is the first claim of this type I have ever heard, and I can't seem to find any indication of this in any search I've done so far.
As far as the Canadian Health Care system goes, I was considering moving to Canada a few years ago when I had a relationship gong on with a Canadian woman. She advised me not to do that as their personal income tax rate was in the area of 60% alone, primarily because of their socialized healthcare system (I have since had this verified many times). Her gross income was significantly higher than mine, yet her take home pay was incredibly small, and primarily because of health care deductions. She also explained that because everyone thinks it's somehow "free" up there, people fill up the waiting rooms for every little sniffle and sore throat they have. She painted a picture and explained how difficult it was to get medical treatment in Canada 15 years ago, how every visit to a doctor had to be approved, how she and her children had been denied various treatments as it was not "cost effective" or deemed to be "unnecessary", and it has not gotten any better in the interim.
Since then, I've met many Canadians both here and in my travels to Canada, and not one has reported any different than what I was originally told. Every Canadian I have ever met, and I've met quite a few, has stated that compared to Canada, we have great medical care down here in the US. One person I met had Carpal Tunnel and came here so he wouldn't be "butchered", as he put it. He shopped around and went to Boston for his surgery and had microsurgery performed which left him with two little 1/4" scars on his wrists, as opposed to huge forearm length scars he said he would have had from the treatment available to him in Canada.
So, the quality of the care available in the US has always been recognized as very high, both here and amongst other countries. Our primary problems are the high cost which is associated with various factors such as doctors having to carry exhorbitantly priced malpractice insurance, lack of open competition across state lines for health insurance (heck, my car insurance dropped by $700 in one year when my state finally opened up to interstate competition after a 30 year freeze), Pharmaceutical companies and Lobbyists in washington buying various votes for various bills and outcomes on lawsuits, etc.
While we have always been recognized as having the best medical care in the world, there are reasons why the health care costs are so high, and it is the high costs which are causing all the arguments.
Personally, my belief is we should address the causes of the problems directly (tort reform, campaign finance reform, open competition for health insurance across state lines, and so on). In this way, we would bring the cost of healthcare down rather quickly while still retaining the high quality of medical care and treatment currently available, and keep the government where it belongs and out of the private sector and interfering with the marketplace where it always seems to do more harm than good in the long run.
Posted by: Frank | September 19, 2009 03:36 AM
Virtually no wait for a specialist in the US???? you gotta be kidding!!!
I, for one, have had to wait about 2-3 months to see 1) a general surgeon, 2) an endocronologist, and 3) a pediatric nuero-specialist for my daughter, and 4) every year for my annual exam, which i have to schedule 10 weeks out.
Posted by: bob | October 23, 2009 07:19 PM